


lead me out of the dark

by undeliveredtruth



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: (sort of), 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Gang AU, Bodyguard, M/M, Moments in their lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:48:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29489313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undeliveredtruth/pseuds/undeliveredtruth
Summary: Five times Wooyoung needs a bodyguard, and one time he needs Jongho.
Relationships: Choi Jongho/Jung Wooyoung
Comments: 5
Kudos: 64





	lead me out of the dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yoongoogles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoongoogles/gifts).



> Dear Tay, I know I'm late, but happy day after birthday? ^^ I tried to pack as many tropes as I could in this haha, I hope you enjoy this even if it's short. I love you lots lots lots <3 <3

**I.**

It all starts, sadly, when he’s three years old.

He loves his mother, like every young child. All he remembers is the hand in his own, hers, pulling him to a side alley and shushing him with a finger to his lips.

_You need to stay quiet, Wooyoung. Do you get me?_

Wooyoung remembers he nodded, and wanted to be a good kid for his mother whose eyes visibly trembled, a barely-concealed layer of what he knew even then to be fear.

So he stayed quiet. Even as everything happened.

He doesn’t remember much. All that Wooyoung was left with was a scar on his thigh unfading even eighteen years later and a mother who perishes day after day, locked up by fear and panic.

The man who comes to watch over him is old by Wooyoung’s standards, greying hair at his temples.

“I have a son just like you. Just one year younger, but he’s not as quiet as you. Got a voice as loud as storms,” the man pats him on the head and Wooyoung smiles. He knows how to stay quiet. His mom and dad make sure he learned how to stay quiet so nothing like what happened to him and his mom would happen again.

Mr. Choi is big and burly and even if he has to watch over Wooyoung as he runs toy tracks in the sand with his friends or hang around in the corner of the room as Wooyoung’s patient tutor tries to teach him the alphabet, he gets it. He doesn’t want to end up as his mom did, so he stays quiet and gets it.

**II.**

Wooyoung doesn’t get why he and Jongho are in the same grade.

His bodyguard’s son is a year younger, he should be a year below Wooyoung. Now that they’re both in first grade, he can’t properly lord his hyung status over Jongho to have the younger boy hand him the Legos he wants or demand for him to help him build sandcastles at the beach.

When he asks his mother, cuddling into her lap in the living room, his mother laughs, patting his hair and telling him that _Jongho is a smart boy, dear, he worked hard to enter school with you._

Wooyoung—fine, Wooyoung doesn’t _really_ mind, but he already spent so much time with Jongho even before entering school, and now he has the younger boy trailing after him every hour of every day, in school and after, when his mother watches over them as they do homework or play games in the living room.

He gets it, that Jongho doesn’t have a mother of his own, but lately, it feels like Jongho is taking over everything that is his—from his toys and his old clothes (except that’s changed recently since they now seem to be the same size) and his mom, and now even _school._

He wouldn’t mind it too much if Jongho was just _there._ But the thing is that he is _there_ and also very loud and apparently also very scary for other people in his class—which honestly _why_ because Jongho is really a whiny kid at heart—but that means that people also stay away from Wooyoung and he doesn’t like _that._

“Don’t be mean, baby. Jongho likes being around you.”

Hmph. Sure. Fine. Wooyoung doesn’t mind hanging around Jongho, he guesses.

Until he does.

“Why did you push them?” Wooyoung cries out, clambering into the backseat of the car after Jongho. Jongho’s father gets in the driver's seat, locking the car and pulling up all the windows after Wooyoung gets in and closes the car door.

“Because they were mean.”

“They weren’t mean! They just wanted the blue crayons.”

“They took them out of your hand. I didn’t like that.”

Wooyoung’s mouth quickly opens, a retort on the tip of his tongue, but he turns his head. “Mr. Choi, is it right—“

“Wooyoung, in a second—“ Mr. Choi stops him, eyes determined on the road. Wooyoung recognizes the tone—that’s the _stay quiet_ tone—so he falls into the backseat. Jongho starts a reply, but Wooyoung digs his nails into his thigh and Jongho seems to get it by his soon-closed mouth.

Mr. Choi steps harder on the gas pedal. Next to Wooyoung, buildings whoosh by the window, and he keeps quiet until they get home.

**III.**

A few months in, Wooyoung’s lessons start being joined by Jongho. Wooyoung is excited to have something to lord over Jongho because he has been doing this for significantly more time than him, but Jongho comes in, empties a cartridge only hitting tens with a gun that is _definitely_ not beginner-level, and Wooyoung crosses his arms over his chest.

“Fuck.”

“What? You thought I’d suck?” Jongho turns to him, taking down the earmuffs with a smirk. Wooyoung wants to wipe it off his face. “Wooyoung-ah, I’ve been doing this since I was eight.”

 _Eight?_ Wooyoung started when he was _fourteen,_ how the hell did Jongho start this when he was _eight?_

“Close your mouth, you’ll catch flies,” Jongho shoulders him as he passes by, taller and broader than him. Wooyoung narrows his eyes.

Jongho is not only a better shot, but he’s also a better fighter. Wooyoung is fucking _tired_ of ending up slammed to the gym ground by Jongho; he has a sore back every single day nowadays, and not even the ice baths he takes help. He’s also good at kendo, a faster runner, and generally better than Wooyoung at everything.

The only lessons Jongho doesn’t attend are his strategy meetings with his father and his advisors. Not that there’s anything to be better at there because Wooyoung doesn’t speak—he’s just there to listen and understand how the family businesses work.

Once, when his father takes him to a club they manage, honestly, he’d prefer Jongho was here. He’d much, much prefer Jongho was here to experience this weird atmosphere with him, this loud music and strange lights and feeling that Wooyoung has stepped into a place very unfamiliar, where he doesn’t really belong. Where he doesn’t _want_ to belong.

He’d much rather be at home, shooting the shit with Jongho, playing a random shooting game in his bed rather than stepping into a smoke-filled room with his father, bowing to people he doesn’t know.

It’s the first time Wooyoung really gets to hear things he’s truthfully known for a long time. Hearing them… doesn’t make it easier though. Not at all. He really wishes he was at home.

An hour later, as a gunshot is heard in the back alley, Wooyoung _really_ wishes he was at home.

Mr. Choi urges him out of the room through the chaos, Wooyoung’s hands over his head and his eyes careful of where he steps. He leads Wooyoung down dark halls, with the chaos getting louder and louder behind him. For a second, Wooyoung is _scared—_ for his father, for the people, for _himself_ —but then remembers he can’t.

He can be quiet, but he can never be scared. That’s the one thing his father always made sure Wooyoung knew.

So Wooyoung isn’t scared. Mr. Choi hands him a gun, just in case, and Wooyoung puts it in his jacket, and it’s now familiar in his hand. A strange concept, but after a year, he thinks it should be. So it is.

**IV.**

Jongho trained since he was eight.

Ten years in training, and when he’s eighteen, Jongho officially becomes Wooyoung’s bodyguard.

By then, Wooyoung’s done enough missions with Mr. Choi to feel slightly uncomfortable with Jongho even if he’s known him for his entire life. He knows he does trust Jongho, of course… but when his entire life is at stake, there are times in which his unconscious can’t help but ask him _do you?_

_Do you really?_

These are serious things that Wooyoung now has to do with Jongho; and no matter the fact that they’ve trained together for four years, and that Mr. Choi will join them for a while, and yes, to be fair, Wooyoung does almost know Jongho like the back of his hand… you know, he doesn’t know the back of his hand that well. He doesn’t look at it _all the time._ That’s a stupid expression, but also his own hand isn’t gonna save Wooyoung’s ass from death.

But Jongho’s supposed to. And Wooyoung has to trust that—the kid that’s wiped his snot on Wooyoung’s shirts too many times, cried and refused to admit it when Wooyoung got good enough to beat him at his favorite game (only one time), and refuses to eat olives because they made him sick once.

Wooyoung can just hope for the best.

(Well, he better hope for the best, because the worst means there will be no Wooyoung to hope for anything else.)

“Are you sure?” Jongho asks for the fiftieth time, and Wooyoung rolls his eyes.

“I’m sure, I checked, none of those guys were on the roster. If you didn’t trust me, you should’ve checked it yourself.”

Wooyoung isn’t having it today, that much should be clear. His father was pissy at him from the morning about a fuck-up he did three days ago which honestly wasn’t too big of a fucking deal. Barely any money had to be paid, nobody had to die, nobody was even _hurt._ In return, he got this stupid mission today he didn’t want to do and had to cancel a date he was _very_ much looking forward to. What is his college life if he has to give up on an opportunity for a great time every few days to go do his father’s dirty work?

“It’s not that I don’t trust you. I just wanted to make sure,” Jongho says, as calm and kind as ever. Usually, the tone is comforting to Wooyoung, but today it’s just aggravating, has an undertone of looking down on him, and Wooyoung’s honestly just had it.

But a mission is a mission, no matter that it’s just recon, so Wooyoung keeps quiet, lets Mr. Choi park the car, and gets out of it with Jongho. Mr. Choi will stay in the car to wait for them, so Wooyoung straightens his back and marches to the warehouse, with the moon barely lighting his way. It’s pitch black in this field, but that only means good things.

Wooyoung takes his spot behind a bush near the warehouse. He can’t hear anything, none of Jongho’s breathing or anything like that, but he knows Jongho is behind him--he can feel his presence like a shift in the air, a protective bubble of energy around Wooyoung.

Mayhaps this is what trust means--unequivocally knowing Jongho is there.

Wooyoung observes the warehouse, hand loose but ready around the gun. When he hears a small shift on the ground, the sign Jongho has stepped closer, he straightens just a tad and rapidly but quietly moves to another bush.

He doesn’t need much, just to be able to peek inside to see if the shipment is already here. If their calculations are correct, this is the time when the guards usually switch to patrol the outside, so they’re far away. Wooyoung can barely see their outlines, so that means they can’t see him if he sneaks to the side of the building. Wooyoung just needs a second. Just a couple of seconds to step closer, getting away from the bush and--

A hand tugs him out of the way and back. Wooyoung turns around, he knows it’s Jongho by his grip but _what the fuck?_

Jongho taps a hand on his shoulder, twice and then once more, and Wooyoung closes his mouth. _Keep quiet,_ the signal says, and Wooyoung does. Chooses to.

He chooses to trust Jongho, even though his brain is a constant _what the fuck_ and he’s barely holding his heart back from hammering in his chest, struggling to stay in control. Jongho drags him through a path opposite from what they came, their exit route--are they leaving? Why the fuck are they--

The explosion deafens Wooyoung and rocks him off his feet, caught by Jongho before they both topple to the ground with a painful grunt.

Three powerful taps, rapid succession.

_Run._

Wooyoung _runs._

Jongho holds on to his wrist, directing him to the car, and Wooyoung dashes the fastest he’s dashed in his _life,_ chasing the outline of the black vehicle. The door opens when they’re a meter away and Wooyoung rapidly clambers in, pulling Jongho after himself. Before they have a chance to close the car door, Mr. Choi speeds away the opposite way, no screeching tires but the feeling is just the same.

Wooyoung looks back to the warehouse. The night is now bright with the red flames licking at the warehouse’s structure, rapidly taking over.

If he didn’t… if Jongho didn’t…

“How did you know?” Wooyoung whispers in the air, shock in his voice.

“The guards. They were going the wrong way,” Jongho whispers in return, his hand still gripping Wooyoung’s wrist in a vice grip. Wooyoung’s jaw drops.

He didn’t see. He didn’t notice. Jongho did… Jongho… saved his life.

“Fuck,” Wooyoung turns, burying his face in Jongho’s chest. Now that the immediate shock has mostly passed, the hectic beat of his heart rings out in his own ears.

_Fuck fuck fuck._

“You’re fine,” Jongho’s calming, comforting voice whispers in his ear.

_Fuck._

A hand on his back, not patting, not rubbing, just… resting. Wooyoung wills himself to breathe, hands tight in Jongho’s jacket, feeling the outline of his gun under his left. Faster and then slower, letting Jongho’s clean, familiar scent wash over him.

_Fucking fuck._

“You’re fine,” Jongho repeats, a bit stilted, so Wooyoung looks up at him.

“Thank you,” he whispers but doesn’t know how to match the gravity of the moment. “Thank you.”

So he whispers it again.

“It’s fine,” Jongho nods. Wooyoung knows him, so he can see--Jongho is as scared as him.

Wooyoung’s elbows tug him back to Jongho, hands still twisted in his jacket, to bury his face in the juncture between his neck and shoulder. “I’m sorry if I ever didn’t trust you. I trust you. I trust you now,” he whispers in vibrations on Jongho’s skin, lips moving against his pulse point. Jongho doesn’t flinch away from a gesture he usually would right away, just wraps the hand around Wooyoung tighter.

 _Fuck,_ Wooyoung thinks, once more for emphasis. _Fuck_ , but also fuck himself--for ever thinking Jongho wasn’t enough.

**V.**

“Wooyoung, _come back here!”_ San screams after him, but Wooyoung _doesn’t want to hear it._

He doesn’t want to hear any of his excuses anymore. He thought San was _better_ , that he was different.

But as everyone else, San doesn’t get it.

Doesn’t get that Wooyoung _doesn’t have a choice—_ he never fucking chose to be in this family, never had any say in the path they’ve chosen for him or the decisions he was forced to make from an early age. Sure, Wooyoung made them, but he wasn’t _cruel_ —he didn’t want to, and he never stayed around after, never asked around where they ended up or what their families thought, and…

Didn’t that matter? Didn’t that matter for fucking anything, that Wooyoung lived every day in agony?

Of course San didn’t get it, because San, with his bubblegum hair and kind family and kind everything, down to the depths of his soul, was _polluted_ by someone like Wooyoung. With every touch on San’s skin, the marks Wooyoung left over were just a physical manifestation of the degradation he brought to San’s life.

But selfishly, Wooyoung allowed himself to believe that just _once,_ he might be able to have it. Allowed San’s brightness to reach deep into him, bring a torch to places that had never seen light and instill in Wooyoung _love_ and _hope._

Foolish. Wooyoung snorts to himself, huddling in his hoodie as he steps into the park across from San’s apartment building. He really regrets he left his coat back at San’s place—at least he wasn’t dumb enough to leave his phone.

Some years before, Wooyoung wouldn’t have even been allowed to be at San’s place. At least not without Jongho around, hanging around the apartment. Wooyoung snorts to himself thinking of Jongho witnessing the things Wooyoung and San did, chilling in the corner of the room while Wooyoung gags on San’s dick or gets thrown around his bed. Would he enjoy it? He probably would—no matter how discreet and stuck-up Jongho is nowadays, Wooyoung has known him since they were kids. In his teenage years, Jongho wasn’t quick enough to hide his glances on Wooyoung’s body when Wooyoung changed clothes in front of him or stepped out of the shower half-naked.

Plus, Wooyoung is too used to eyes on him.

Honestly, these days… Wooyoung is starting to question if he gets it either. Sitting down on the bench, he pulls his knees to his chest and buries his head in them.

San… San was someone to him, but Wooyoung knows when it’s time to let go. And he knows he’s going to have to let go. Taking a few breaths in and a few out, he tries to calm down his rapid heartbeat, still burning from their argument. The chill reaches through him, sending a shiver down…

Suddenly, the shiver isn’t just the cold. Wooyoung feels pinpricks down his neck—it’s just panic, unnecessary, surely, but his hands reach in his pocket anyway to press the home button three times in rapid succession. _Jongho…_

Wooyoung peels his eyes open, but there’s nobody around, nobody anywhere close. Wooyoung hears the voices of people, but they’re far away, and Wooyoung makes the split second decision to get up and head in their direction. Busy places always make for the best covers, Wooyoung’s learned, and as he quickens his pace down the path towards the busier side of the park, unable to get rid of the uncomfortable feeling down his back, he hears footsteps behind him.

And relaxes.

“Hey, everything okay?” Jongho’s voice breezes past his ears. Wooyoung, instantly relieved, relaxes. He doesn’t miss the strung-up arch of Jongho’s back, his hand hovering over the pocket of his jacket, where his gun is stowed.

“Yeah. I just couldn’t… I felt like someone was watching me, but there wasn’t. I don’t know.”

“Let’s get you home,” Jongho wraps a hand around Wooyoung’s back. “I’d give you my jacket, but…”

“Don’t worry,” Wooyoung shakes his head. He’s already feeling warmer—and not just physically.

**\+ 1.**

A slump. A bad day (week). A block.

Except for Wooyoung, it’s extended into months. Years. His entire life, maybe.

He doesn’t think it’s the break-up. It’s been months and he’s long since been over the feeling of frustration that the relationship with San had to end. It’s something more… fundamental.

He can admit as much, that San was just the tipping point, the last drop in the metaphorical glass that tipped the water of his unhappiness over, making a mess of what used to be his very straightforward goals.

Wooyoung had made peace with everything. Had gotten used to the idea that he was doomed to be a bad person for the rest of his life, and had even gotten to be _okay_ with it.

But then… fucking _San_ , for once, but also fucking _Jongho_ with his questioning look and hand on Wooyoung’s waist knowing right away when Wooyoung was not himself.

For that fucking look swimming behind his eyes showing Wooyoung clear as day that yes, he’s thinking the same fucking thing. If that wasn’t there…

Wooyoung would have easily gotten over San.

But as it stands, he can’t. He can’t. He can’t get over the whole thing, the wretch in his life that seemed to throw everything away. Sure, San was the spark, but Jongho is the gasoline growing the fire into something all-consuming.

_Fuck it._

Wooyoung presses the button on his phone three times, enjoying the satisfaction of Jongho bursting into his room five seconds after. If Jongho did this to him, Wooyoung can at least wreck him up a little.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Wooyoung smirks from his bed. “Come in.”

“What the…” Jongho does.

And well… Now that he’s in here, the balloon of Wooyoung’s courage deflates with a dejected whistle.

He doesn’t know what to say really. He doesn’t even know why he called Jongho in here, actually. Why did he?

“What’s wrong?” Jongho joins him above the covers, carefully sitting down. The lamp illuminates his features as the last embers of Wooyoung’s smirk fade into nothingness. Wooyoung can make out the concerned look on Jongho’s features, too plain to see.

Jongho has always been an open book.

Wooyoung’s lips softly touch Jongho’s. Just as soft, Jongho’s hand reaches out to hold his cheek. On his soft skin, Wooyoung can feel the calluses on Jongho’s hand.

He pulls away. His forehead rests on Jongho’s, a breath escaping him mingling with the heat of Jongho’s own.

“You okay?” Jongho whispers, and Wooyoung nods.

Jongho has always thought of him. Out of all the people in his life, Jongho is the only one who always put him first.

“Do you think we should leave?” Wooyoung asks in the scary silence of the night, alight with all the possibilities and yet held down by the very real possibility of how it could all go to shit. Easily.

“I think you’ve wanted to for a long time.”

“Have I?” Wooyoung pulls away to ask, finding the same look in Jongho’s eyes as when he kissed him for the first time, years before. _Love._

Finally, Wooyoung thinks it matters to him.

He didn’t know it when he was fifteen and full of adrenaline, smacking his lips on Jongho’s and fisting his hand in his shirt to pay him back for one more day of soreness and pain from Jongho besting him at everything. He knew that was the one way to get him to shut up, but even so, he didn’t--he asked first and by then the whole frustration was gone and Jongho wasn’t caught by surprise, just pulled back with his eyes wide.

_Love._

It’s because Jongho loves Wooyoung that not only is Wooyoung alive, but able to recognize what is good for him. And, by extension, what isn’t.

“Would you run away? With me?”

“In a heartbeat.” Just like his answer, Jongho’s words come without a second of hesitation. “I’ve been waiting for years.”

They don’t run away that night. Nor the day after. Nor the next week, nor the next few months.

They keep building instead--adding more money to their pile, ensuring connections, creating believable stolen passports. Signing a lease for an apartment in the middle of nowhere in Portugal under fake names, planning the careful way they’ll leave the country. Not by airplane, but by boat, travelling through China and on.

Wooyoung plans, with anxiety blooming in his chest, but there is one last thing. One hidden card.

The day of, Wooyoung goes to see his mother.

The sight of her pale face still wrecks a dagger of hurt through Wooyoung’s heart. Confined to her bed, his mother waves a weak hand for Wooyoung to join her. Wooyoung sits down at her side, letting his mother put a hand on his cheek.

“My baby,” she coos.

Wooyoung bursts into tears.

‘I’m sorry, mom,” he chokes through sobs. “I’m sorry, I have to--”

“I know, baby, I know,” her low voice cuts through Wooyoung’s tears, waiting until his wrecking sobs turn into silent tears. “I want you to do this. I want you to go on and be happy, alright? I will deal with your father.”

Wooyoung looks into her eyes, the resilience in them he hasn’t seen in a long while catching him by surprise.

He nods.

“I love you,” she whispers, and he breaks into a fresh wave of tears.

“Are you ready?” Jongho asks. Wooyoung shakes his head because _no,_ he _isn’t,_ but will he ever be?

He takes a second of pause--saying goodbye to everything he has and everything he leaves behind--and nods.

Jongho takes his hand. And together, they step into the great unknown.


End file.
